Moveable Pentatonic

In this lesson, you'll take another big step forward when it comes to working outside of the open position. You'll feel like doing some jamming too!

Taught by David Isaacs in Beginner Guitar With David Isaacs seriesLength: 8:44Difficulty: 1.5 of 5

Continuing on with the concept of moveable forms on the guitar neck that we began
in the last lesson, this time we’ll apply this idea to a scale. Starting off with a specific
set of locations on the neck, we’ll then take a look at how a scale can be moved
around just like a chord.
The scale we’re using is an E minor pentatonic, covering a little over two octaves.
We’ve looked at pentatonic scales in the open position before and incorporated
some shifting, but this one is played almost entirely in the upper positions. The open
low E string is included for the sake of completeness, and it just sounds better to
start from the root – but everything else uses fretted notes only and is therefore
moveable to different places on the neck. The trick is to memorize not just the
specific locations on the neck for this scale but to learn the relationships between
the parts.
Notice the extensive use of the glide shift in this scale. Not only does it make for a
nice fluid sound, it also makes transitions very easy…moving around is as simple as
gliding two frets up or down the same string. Remember that “glide” is not the same
as “slide” in the sense that you don’t hear the transition when shifting – we release
the pressure to stop the sound but maintain contact with the string. A slide
maintains the pressure so that we actually hear the finger moving along the string.
They’re two different effects and both are worth practicing.
When you take look at the tablature, you might also notice that if we break up the
exercise into small sections we could say that it’s made up of pairs of notes, either
on the same string or on adjacent strings. These segments almost always use the
index and ring fingers on two notes two frets apart, with the exception of the highest
note at the eighth fret of the B string (played with the middle finger). The exercise
connects all these notes together to create a long line, but any one of these small
note groups could be moved to a different part of the neck and become part of a new
pentatonic scale. The entire scale could also be moved if we disregard the first note
(the open low E) and move the entire pattern to another location, preserving the
fingerings and slides.
The note we end on, the E on the seventh fret of the 5th string, is the root or home
note of the scale. If we do move the scale, the easiest way to keep track of where we
are is to identify the root: in other words, notice where that note appears in the
sequence and use it as a reference to locate the others. This is a more advanced
concept and will become easier as you get to know the neck better…just keep in
mind that the idea is to preserve the fingering pattern, no matter what position
you’re in. The shifts might make it a little more challenging to keep track, but just
take note of which strings you shift on and how far they go…in this case, it will
always be a two-fret shift up or down with the index or ring finger. The only
exception is the open E in the beginning and the jump from open E to the 5th string E
at the end.

Beginner Guitar With David Isaacs

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You've made it a long way if you've made it to the end of this series! In this final lesson of Mr. Isaacs beginner course, you'll spend some dedicated time moving both major and minor barre chord formations...

Length: 21:58Difficulty: 2.0Members Only

About David IsaacsView Full Biography
Nashville-based Dave Isaacs has made a name for himself as one of Music City's top guitar instructors, working with both professional and aspiring songwriters and artists at his Music Row teaching studio. He is also an instructor in the music department at Tennessee State University and is the coordinator and artistic director of the annual TSU Guitar Summit.

A seasoned performer as well, Dave has released eight independent CDs and gigs steadily as a solo artist, bandleader, and sideman. He continues to write, record, and perform as well as arranging and producing projects for other artists.

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